For war against a major power. President wilson had just given an ultimatum to that nations head of state, but we didnt go to war. At least not them. That major power was on the side of the atlantic. It was mexico. And the menace posed by its president , general victoriano huerta, was the great menace of that moment. So i found this on the front page, where else, of the new york times. Annex 17 pages of that days paper, there was not a single mention of europe, whether there was any menace from europe, where as our two featured office today have so masterfully chronicled, a quartercentury report, but nevertheless very currently, the seeds of a realworld war were already terminating. The second baltimore had just concluded, set the stage of it, and now europe was building toward a far broader and more deadly confrontation. So to examine all these roots, its my great pleasure to welcome margaret, as master a chronicle of the lead up to the conflict in her new, the war that ended peace, as she was describing the words of paris 1919, very close to the owner. And on the far side, robert, whose address not i wont actually listed but thats the book. Its magical i must say. And it of course showed how yet the great work truly pave the way towards understanding great currents that were already build in your. Its been a great passion of mine, much of my life in fact, since college, especially my last book, a shattered peace. And thats coming out in a new edition just in time for the 100th anniversary of the actual start of the war next summer. Speaking of which, there are many ways of approaching historys great turning point, but fundamentally come down to personalities and historic liberties. Market, in your new book, i want to go something of value start off, and ill quote a few words from you. A few generals, crowned heads, diplomats or politicians have the power and authority to cvs or know the mobilizing the armies, to compromise, to carrying out the plans already drawn up by their militaries. So the big question was, was it in fact Uncontrollable Forces that were inevitably moving the world towards war . Or was it in the end quite fallible individuals . I dont think there were forces moving the world in inevitably towards war. Im very reluctant always in history to talk about inevitability, because it means we for our hands and say theres nothing we can do. I think there are some choices. What you had in europe before 1914 was certainly forces pushing towards war. You have heightened nationalism, imperial rivalries, arms race and so on. I think they should never be overlooked, very strong force for peace. A lot of people in europe without we are so progressive that we wont ever have a war again. Again. You have to dig middleclass peace movement. You had the very large Second International at the worldclass and socialist movement which said they wouldnt take part in a capitalist war. It seems to me europe was poised uneasily between these different sorts of forces but it would myself use the word inevitable. Robber, you are known as the consummate biographer as we can tell not only from dreadnought but from so many of the works before and since. But your point of departure seem to be naval strength. You quickly shift to the likes of victoria and bertie, a key envoy, the crowned heads of your. So which was a . Wasnt the dreadnoughts or was it the people who were, in fact, pretty dreadful . [laughter] the dreadnoughts were treated by the people. Bill from the second wilhelm to wessex roosevelt scrimshaw. He spent his summers in england. He desired he was have english and he desired to be accepted by his english family and by the british people as that. And his mother was victorious oldest child. Et cetera, et cetera. He was also the heir to the german throne, and he was subject to the imperial aptitudes and swagger and so forth of this marks germany. Germany became in that generation from the time that his grandfather became emperor after the collapse of france, became the greatest industrial and military power on the continent, with the great army. But i wholly agree she said it better than i could have that all these factors, industrial, military and so forth, were at the disposition of, not playthings, but the apparatus which individuals were operating. And, therefore, it was very important to these individuals were, what their antecedents have been, dynastic way, genealogically, politically. Wilhelm was the emperor of germany. He was a physically afflicted and psychologically, i think, afflicted men. He had great power for i wont call it evil, but for destruction. And he was constantly shifting back and forth between a sort of pallid desire to do good, to be recognized in europe as a factor for good, but im launched from what she said. I would say the dreadnoughts race was because wilhelm wanted a great navy, a high seas fleet. Britain and france and france had already gobbled up all the colonies but no one knew quite what the german navy was for. Certainly the british didnt. They asked themselves, hes got the most powerful army in europe, why did he need a great navy . Who was he supposed to be building against . That raises a very interesting point because it seems to me the similar events of the lead up to the war and the war itself was really the end of a host of empires that were lead by these great leaders. And its really a conflict that brought probably more empires to an end in one fell swoop in any of the conflict publicly in history. Youre the historian more than i, but you would be able to better say that than i. But did these empires, by 1913, had these empires and the people who ran that simply became untenable and this was one of the most of one of the motive force of the goes into this complex . I dont think they become untenable. When people in africa and asia saw what the europeans could do, they no longer believe in the myth that these people were some us could better to rule them than they were themselves. What happened by 1913 is so much of what had been divided up and it was a much less. There was. It was china because i think there is a general feeling that if we tried to do that we might really end in the war. There was the ottoman empire. The powers were circling the both are run china and the ottoman empire. I think what was more important with this idea this goes back to what robert was saying, you can be a great power without having an entire. We dont think like that. I think that fashions in International Relations as much as there are in any other aspect of human activity. It was this belief, partly because britain was the dominant power until 1914, that you couldnt be a great power and that meant having a navy. Certainly wilhelm plays a huge part in this budget to put not been exactly but the influence of captain alfred my hanh, the American Naval tanker issue chair because he popularized and express the idea that great powers have empires, they therefore have navys. He can be a great power without having a navy to protect your trade or your empire. I think wilhelm, wilhelm read the book, the influence of sea power upon history instead im in trance. I never anything so wonderful. He had copies the put in a cabinet of every chairmanship. I cant remember, i read somewhere he said sermons should be given in german churches about those ideas which make for very odd sermons, and its true. Wilhelm always went overboard. Thats a very narrow slice of time. Nowadays of course navies are important. There certainly not by any means seminal since the arrival of airplanes and so on. Theres a very narrow slice of time that this sort of a thing would become so critical and that there were individuals who headed up governments and so on and he would be willing to bow down in the face of that, right . The trouble with wilhelm was both this personally, this very erratic person for this lovehate relationship with britain. He wanted to any like them but he also feared them. Erie county. The trouble was he was in charge of a very powerful nation and it wouldnt have mattered if youd been the british king because the british king had no power under the bridge constitute an, wouldnt have mattered if your thinking about then you pick it wouldve matter for the albanians but not for the rest of europe. He was in charge of this powerful country at the heart of your. German reunification, suddenly you have this huge power and getting more powerful because its industry, its economy were booming. It at this very powerful army. So when wilhelm took german in a certain direction, he had a great deal of power under the german constitution and i think thats what made him so dangerous. Its interesting because this sort of imperial presidency doesnt seem to work very much more. Winston churchill was able to dictate so many Different Things during the Second World War, and even to some degree the admiral during the first world war. Nowadays, cameron came in the apartment to bow to his least well. The imperial presidency seems to be changing in some ways, do you have that since . Certainly barack obama is an example of a president who is struggling to enact this legislation and their struggles with decisions. I have always, though im a lifelong democrat, and i remember adlai stevenson, the first candidate i voted for. And i have come to believe that in that great of the 50s, im in retrospect glad that Dwight Eisenhower was the president. He had the experience, maybe not the articulation, but the experience and the presence and reputation to stand up to khrushchev, and he had military superiority. But i think that well, personality matters. Im getting back to that. I think that the build up of the german navy, which the kaiser hankered after for the reasons market has eloquently expressed, was not intended as a real challenge to britain. It was intended as an addon to military power. Were going to be a great world power. And the british, who depended only, the british army was expert but tiny, relatively. They only had a navy. It gave them it provided them with a pax britannica. They policed the seas for, among others, german commercial trade. But any evidence of another power, communal power, building the ability, creating the ability to invade, just crossed the channel and bring their army into britain was unthinkable. And thats why the britain the liberal government came in in 1906. They had all kinds of social plans, education, old age, and so forth. They spent every pound on battleships. Margaret, every historian sees major events like this to their own prism. A jp taylor saw the proximate cause of the war as a railway timetables, dealing with troop movements, so the question is, and robert sees a lot of the prism is the dreadnought. What is your prism for this period, this crucial period leading up to world war i . Bob litt a very reflective prism, more like a kaleidoscope. I have trouble in taking on one main cause of the war, and i dont think there is one. Its a conference of causes, and its also timing. I think things happened in particular sequence, it makes a difference. What you had by 1914 were certain pressures building up that were tending towards war. You also had a growing acceptance of the possibility of war, which is very dangerous. What struck me more and more whenever there was a crisis, people didnt say if there is a war, they said when there is a war. They were real expectations they would get some point a general european war, even some people think it might be released. One of the images that was often used at the time was of a thunderstorm. Its very impressive, very heavy. It would be a relief to get it over with and then well all feel better, have a quick, short war and then have peace. What you also had was a very dangerous since by 1914 that we can get through these crises, because there had been a series of crises which the look of them were getting closer and closer together, the two moroccan crises, the crisis over bosnia, and a series of the balkans up until 2014 and there was this dangerous sense of complacency that weve got to all this, will get to the again. So in the summer of 1914 at first people didnt take it seriously. The british were preoccupied with the possibility of civil war over ireland. If you look at british newspapers for most of july 1914, the headlines were about ireland, not about whats happening in the balkans are what austriahungary is doing. I think you get a combination. And also an expectation that on the other hand, its another crisis, we will probably get through it again. I think he didnt give him. And i would say this is true of the british, particularly in sir edward grey, you didnt get people taking the crisis was enough until its almost too late. I faceted also by tinderboxes. I spent three years in belgrade. One of my tinderboxes, my wife and i just traveled throughout maine it earlier this year. Im fascinated as to the role you think that that tinderbox and that Tipping Point played in all of us. It seems to have been very crucial to the priorities of so many of the powers involved in this. To this war have occurred i mean, it might eventually have occurred could have occurred without a lot of the tensions in the balkans leading up to all of this . I think it could have because you had great power rivalries. Britain and france went to war in 1898. Britain and russia came close to war. Second there were other causes. But the balkans were particularly dangerous because of where they were. There were a number of interest met. I do like the middle east today oppressed the South China Sea is today, not just local interest. In the balkans jihadists is a very active, competing local nationalisms and these are becoming more vociferous rather than less. What you all said were great our interest. You have the russians, i think was sort of a sentimental stuff, mostly the pan slavic stuff, but there was and a warm water port which is much more important. And the strange going from the black sea to the mediterranean were hugely important for russia. Over half its grain exports were not the way, great deal of International Machinery was coming in. It was a vital for the russians. Then you had austriahungary assaying germany interest. Angulated italy, and so you had a sort of combination of very dangerous local rivalries with outside powers being dragged in. Robert, id be interested, because you have a perspective a little bit longer perspective in terms of research over the last quarter century. Do you have any sense that anything weve learned since then through the archives and margaret, since you the very recent in any archives you could probably respond to this as well whether our thinking about this air has changed anyway since you first wrote dreadnought nearly a quartercentury ago. I mean, its still very releva relevant. David, ive got five or six books to read that i know of, beginning with margarets, to learn what later, refresher research has taught us. Ive never felt ive never been asked this kind of a conference or panel on the subject, so ive not thought about it much. Ive been going back to russia. But i will be very interested to read what you and max hastings and the fellow who thinks the russians started the war robert meek and. Yet. And others. I mean, the war began what, 10 months ago. Weve got five books now. Probably thats enough, but [laughter] i dont think publishers or authors, i dont know, would agree with me. So we can read and im going to look, beginning with your book, to see what you say i need to think, rethink. I would just say that talking about the balkans, ive always thought that the hapsburg government indiana was very worried about the serbian influence, sort of Magnetic Pull on the serbs, on the slobs within the empire. And theyve been looking for an excuse to do something about it if necessary militarily. And increasingly militarily. And the pretext was perfect. The black hand, or a young man in the under the influence, assassinated the heir to the throne. And everybody in europe nobody approved of a regicide or i dont know what youd call an air heiricide. [laughter] but then when serbia gave its ultimatum to austria gave its ultimatum to serbia, and it said, along with a lot of other things, the final thing the serbs couldnt accept was that austrians must be a part of the judicial or panel, which was going to interrogate and trace back the connections that this assassination had to serbia and so forth. And the kaiser was aware, and the german general staff was aware that austria was germanys only outline in europe, that austria was crumbling in its adhesion to the Imperial Administration in vienna, and they really needed to do something. And they decided were going to make this ultimatum, as they did. And they bombarded belgrade. They occupied it and so forth. The emperors tried various ways to stop the progression to war, willie mcgee letters and so forth. Willynicky letters, and so forth. I have always seen that not just a pretext, i think what margaret was saying, a culmination of this very dangerous balkans situation, and then Everybody Knows the german generals staff at plan for a war against france, when and if it happened, as a part of a war against russia. They were going to strike france down first, six weeks to paris, and it didnt turn out that way spent before we turn to our members, and since the council is know for did you want to im just agreeing with them. We like agreement, and disagreement. For return to our members, since the council is know for its great thinking about todays world as well, id like to reflect on some lessons we might try on. Market, i want to read another passage in her marvelous book. Our world is facing similar challenges, some revolutionary and ideological such as the rise of militant religious or social protest movements, others coming from the streets between rising and declining nations such as china and the United States. Ill leave open the question of which is which. Then you continue, during previous crises, europes leaders and large parts of the people had supported them, had chosen to work matters out and to preserve the peace. This clearly failed. So what lessons do we draw from this kind of a dynamic today, if there is a . Well, not very helpful ones perhaps but i think certain precepts. I dont think history ever offers a spherical lessons but i think there is always this dangerous moment in International Relations we have nations such as germany which are rising in power and as yet uncertain of how to express the power. They are often not very tactful. They are often wanting their place in the sun. He of nations which have been a hegemonic powers which perhaps dont always do enough to accommodate these rising powers. I think it needs tax and management on both sides. I hope that something that the leaders of countries such as china and the United States, i